Simulation Credibility Assessment Methodology with FPGA-based Hardware-in-the-Loop Platform

Electronic control systems are becoming more and more complicated, which makes it difficult to test them sufficiently only through experiments. Simulation is an efficient way in the development and testing of complex electronic systems, but the simulation results are always doubted by people due to the lack of credible simulation platforms and assessment methods. This article proposes a credible simulation platform based on real-time field programmable gate array (FPGA)-based hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation, and then an assessment method is proposed to quantitatively assess its simulation credibility. By using the FPGA to simulate all sensor chips, the simulation platform can ensure that the tested electronic system maintains the same hardware and software operating environment in both simulations and experiments, which makes it possible to perform the same tests in the simulation platform and the real experiment to compare and analyze the simulation errors. Then, the testing methods and assessment indices are proposed to assess the simulation platform from various perspectives, such as performance, time-domain response, and frequency-domain response. These indices are all normalized to the same scale (from 0 to 1) and mapped to a uniform assessment criterion, which makes it convenient to compare and synthesize different assessment indices. Finally, an overall assessment index is proposed by combining all assessment indices obtained from different tests to assess the simulation credibility of the whole simulation platform. The simulation platform and the proposed assessment method are applied to a multicopter system, where the effectiveness and practicability are verified by simulations and experiments.